Making All Search Local

Three ways to optimize
your Internet presence for
local search queries

:: by John Faris, Red Door Interactive ::

Former U.S. Congressman Tip O’Neill famously
coined the phrase, “All politics is local.” In much
the same way, retail and service companies are
quickly coming to realize that all marketing is
local. With the recent rise — and soon to be
explosion — in GPS/mapping-enabled smart
phones as well as the drastic changes in the way
Google searches trigger results, local search is rapidly
becoming a critical marketing channel. If ignored, it
may mean the difference for an organization being
visible or invisible to potential customers.

The concept is more evolutionary than revolutionary. Most
marketers are savvy enough to claim their listings in Google
Places, but most don’t do anything beyond that. Instead
they opt to focus their efforts on optimizing for general
search queries.

However, claiming your listing is only the first step in a
comprehensive strategy, since the majority of location-specific
searches don’t even take place on Google. Many consumers
use other outlets such as online yellow pages, local
directories and city guides like CitySearch or Yelp, as well
as search engines including Yahoo and Bing, to conduct
their searches for local businesses. Even if Google were to
start dominating local search like they dominate general
search queries (and they probably will), their results are
heavily influenced by these other local sources.

So before missing the boat entirely, here are three things
marketers can do today to optimize their Internet presence
for local search queries.

Stake Multiple Claims. Organizations should establish
their local listings on all three major engines:
Google, Bing and Yahoo! Maps. If a company has more
than 10 locations, they can avoid Google’s postcard/phone
verification process by submitting a spreadsheet for bulk
upload. Once the listings are uploaded, the verification
process can be initiated by submitting a request at
http://bit.ly/GoogleVerification.

Be aware that this still triggers a manual process on
Google’s side and doesn’t result in instantaneous verification.
The process can be accelerated by registering your
Google Places account using a company-owned email address,
as opposed to a Gmail account or other third-party
email address.

Beyond search engine map listings, marketers should
increase the number of “citations”, or mentions of a company
name in association with the location-specific phone
number and address, on third-party sites. They are crucial
in improving the rankings for your map listings. Google
puts more weight on citations from trusted resources like
Yelp, CitySearch, YellowPages.com and Local.com, but
citation authority is industry-specific in many cases.

As an added benefit, top-tier Internet Yellow Pages and
city guides get a fair amount of their own traffic and provide
excellent outlets for consumer reviews. Google often pulls
reviews from third-party sites into their listings and the
number of reviews a location receives can impact the
10-pack rankings. Locations with high customer ratings
typically see a lift in click-through rates as well.

Illustrate and Amplify. Optimizing for local search is
a constant care and feeding process that will require marketers
to keep on top of the latest developments by both
mainstream and vertical search sites and enhance their listings
accordingly. As far as Google Places is concerned, the
first step after claiming and verifying your locations is to
enhance your profiles by building out the listings with comprehensive
information, including pictures and videos.

Companies can even add unique coupons to their listings
that provide incentive to customers and helps with tracking.
One of the most critical data points is the category that is
associated with the business. Choosing the right one helps
to ensure that your locations show up for the right search
terms. The more complete the profile, the more trusted it
becomes by both Google and the consumer. If you still
aren’t showing up for your priority local search terms, consider
advertising in the map results via Google Adwords
Local Ad Extensions pay-per-click services or through
Google Places Tags for a flat fee of $25 per month. Neither
of these advertising options will push your listings into the
10-pack, but they will help your listing get a bit more
exposure in the result pages in Google Maps.

Take Chances. There’s good reason to, so do experiment
with incentivizing consumer actions through mobile
applications like Twitter, far beyond simply chasing the latest
fad. In July, Biz Stone, co-founder of the popular social
media phenomenon boasted that Twitter now supports 800
million search queries per day, more than twice that of
Yahoo! and Bing combined. Many of these searches have
local intent and can be leveraged for both branding and direct
response. And while it is nice to have a large following
of engaged users that you can reach directly, Twitter search
has the possibility of making the micro-blogging site a useful
marketing vehicle independent of your communitybuilding
skills.

In the same light, marketers should start considering location-
based mobile applications like Foursquare and similar
services like Double Dutch, as these services afford companies
the opportunity to tap into users’ geographic locations. Companies
can use that information to serve up offers and information
for nearby businesses and points of interest. Some savvy
marketers, like those at Tasti D-Lite, are even using social-local
apps to power their loyalty programs, providing incentive for
both social and financial transactions.

One thing’s for sure with local search marketing programs:
consistent care, maintenance and optimization will not only
increase online traffic, but offline sales at various locations.
Make sure that you continually update your listings across the
Web if and when any of your location details change. Keeping
the information up-to-date and accurate is key to establishing
credibility with the search engines. Such practices can be the
difference between making noise and making it rain.

About the Author: John Faris is the Online Acquisition Supervisor at Red Door Interactive,
an Internet Presence Management firm that helps organizations
profit from their Web initiatives. Clients include Petco,
Qualcomm, Overstock.com, Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill and
Cricket Communications. He can be reached at jfaris@reddoor.biz.